The University Works Because We Do

WE ARE UofT

THE UNIVERSITY WORKS BECAUSE WE DO

The University of Toronto is the largest and wealthiest
public university in Canada. It has a student body of over
80,000 students across its campuses and increasingly relies on
contract labour at the same time as it increases enrollment,
class sizes, and tuition.

The University has a yearly operating budget of almost $2
billion. The majority of this operating budget comes from you
in the form of tuition fees and government grants. This means
you have a say in how the university, as a public institution,
allocates its funds.

The reality is that the university allocates a mere 3.5% of
the budget to pay the education workers responsible for 60% of
all teaching across the three campuses. As class sizes
increase, many students feel alienated from the learning
process. In this context TAs, writing coaches, lab
demonstrators, and a range of other education workers play a
crucial role in bridging the gap between teaching and
understanding.

In past bargaining rounds we’ve fought for hard caps on
tutorial and lab sizes, pushed the university to be more
accountable to student feedback, and very often go beyond our
contracted duties to help students apply for grad school, get
jobs, and succeed.

What does the university’s budget commitments say about how
it values educators? What does it say about its core mission
of providing high-quality education? More broadly, what does
it say about the changing role and purpose of public
universities?

HEAR FROM OUR TAs & LECTURERS

OUR WORKING CONDITIONS ARE STUDENTS’
LEARNING CONDITIONS

In 2000, CUPE3902 fought for and won the first guaranteed
funding package for graduate students at the University of
Toronto. It took a 3.5 week strike and the incredible support
of the University of Toronto community.

However, the funding package has been frozen at $15,000
since 2008. The result is that every year the real value of
the funding package decreases as the cost of living
skyrockets.

The university is sticking to its bargaining position that
it will not offer any increases to the overall value of the
funding package because of “challenging fiscal realities.”
This amounts to asking education workers at the university to
sit idly by and watch the erosion of their funding package.

As it currently stands, TAs at the University of Toronto -
Canada’s richest, and purportedly best public university -
live at 35% under the poverty line. Once we’re finished our
course work, domestic students continue to pay $8,500 for
tuition and international students pay over $15,000 - for a
library card and monthly meetings with our supervisors. All
comparable institutions in the United States offer
post-residency fees to reflect this reality.

Sessional professors have virtually no job security and mere
$275 in health
care despite having the same qualifications as full time
faculty.

Where is your money going? Who, exactly, faces challenging
fiscal realities? The students and education
workers at U of T who live under the poverty line,
or an institution that spends $2 billion annually, has
billions of dollars in investments, and recently announced an
income stream of $200 million for 2015?